


Bardsong

by Haospart



Series: Saving the world sucks sometimes, but at least there's family [1]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Bards, Character Analysis, Red Lyrium, Rogue Trevelyan - Freeform, The Game, sibling trevelyans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-18
Updated: 2020-08-18
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:13:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25980382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Haospart/pseuds/Haospart
Summary: Rito would never call himself a bard, but what's in a name, really?
Series: Saving the world sucks sometimes, but at least there's family [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1885636
Comments: 3
Kudos: 6





	Bardsong

**Author's Note:**

> Rito's little sister's name is Alta, and belongs to [sith_shenanigans](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sith_shenanigans/pseuds/sith_shenanigans) here on ao3 :D

He was a Bard in nearly everything but name. 

He got lost in courtly intrigue, uncomfortable amongst the spiders waiting on that web of lies. He preferred honesty, open skies, and shadow to the cold, deceptive sterility of a ballroom. For every person and decoration present in a room, it was all cleanly, meticulously placed and there was a subtle, cloying dance around every interaction. It made his skin crawl, and he avoided those environs whenever possible. His sister was better suited for the Game than he was.

But he was a solid musician, and an even better killer. He swam in the secrets of his people, strengthened himself by  _ protecting _ those secrets and earning him steadfast allies and friends.

He drowned in his own secrets, and in a way this too made him a Bard. One little well-placed stone thrown at the glass of his delicate house of cards, and it all would come crashing down around him, shattered into a trillion tiny pieces of deadly shrapnel. He guarded his own secrets, his weaknesses, with the same fervor he afforded the chink in the armor of his friends. He built walls and shields out of honesty, made swords of kindness, and crafted scaled armor out of acceptance and forgiveness. 

A warrior of the heart, cloaked in love and darkness, his earnest, authentic nature hid how treacherous the scaffolding underneath it all was. A Bard could show no weakness. The slightest indicator of failing, a stumble on the path, would be their undoing. A Bard’s relationships were professional, superficial even knowing the deepest, most intimate moments of another’s life.

They learned and danced their way through life, always holding a knife behind their back, at the beck and call of those with enough gold to pay for their services, with all the skill to obfuscate and spin as they dug that knife into the side of their target. The world’s most visible, most precious assassins. Kill without leaving a trace and reap the ensuing gossip.

He did much the same, when he was not pulled into open battle, falling in and out of the shadows and snuffing the life out of someone from across the way. Sometimes with a knife, an arrow, and sometimes he called on the infection flowing through him. Sometimes crushed the life from a target at a distance, clenching a cracking, lyrium-tainted fist and watching the red mist pool out of the mouth of that target on their final breath.

Rito had never been called a Bard. But you can use any name you please for a rose, it will have thorns just the same.


End file.
